


Time Wastes Away. Scars Accumulate.

by yami_no_bakura



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: BDSM, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drabble Collection, Implied Masturbation, Knifeplay, Light Angst, Masochism, Not beta-read, Solo, Stream of Consciousness, part of it is in verse but hey that's appropriate for this universe, really brief and vague Natsuri that may or may not be expanded upon, things that are generally considered to be self-harm even though they're inherently sexual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-04-22 04:58:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14301294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yami_no_bakura/pseuds/yami_no_bakura
Summary: A controversial character's thoughts on a controversial subject.





	1. Time wastes away. Scars accumulate.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, okay. So. I get the feeling that this isn't going to be received well.
> 
> I was once a high school girl with a similar disposition, so I wrote this with that perspective in mind. Yuri's bitter parallels to other "addictions" comes from a place of self-loathing. She feels jealousy towards the perceived sympathy that other so-called "sick" people get— she feels that she has the "maturity" to admit that she does what she does out of desire, rather than a complex.
> 
> Simply put, it's a foul little drabble about struggling with your sexuality. Not beta-read, lol.

The world around me is a little grayer today, the cloudy gloom that ought to be oppressive a blessing to my tired eyes. Sensitive senses, down to the marrow; with thorns jutting out in the form of spiked euphoria. Needless to say, it wears you down after a while.

I’ve read up on what happens to people like me. The online communities are small, and I’m particularly exclusive about who I interact with.

People who claim to hate it are _lying_. That, or they’re more mentally ill than I ever could be. Why else would anyone do it? A quiet and reserved girl like me notices things, even if I can’t bring myself to say them normally. To some degree, everyone has things that they’re ashamed of—things that they could never tell anyone, things that make them feel small. Some people struggle more than others, but in the end, everyone hates themselves at least a little bit.

If you gain weight,  
is it because you like food,  
or because you hate yourself?  
If you smoke cigarettes,  
is it because you like tobacco,  
or because you hate yourself?  
You can't get hooked on heroin  
if you don't enjoy the feeling. Simple.

And I am the same.

That is to say,  
if you do what I do,  
if you chase that same rush,  
don’t victimize your own hedonism.  
That's gross.

It’s not something I like to address directly, even in writing. The doctors told me it was dirty, and my peers lost the warmth in their eyes as the warmth between my thighs accumulated in accordance with their disdain.

Thoughtless slip-ups, like rolling up a wet shirt sleeve, result in heavy eyes throwing around their weight. Until you’re cornered, looking someone around your grandmother’s age in the eyes as she _makes_ you explain.

Better to be called a freak  
than proclaimed by all I meet as weak.

I’m not sure what exactly Freud said on the matter, but I remember thinking that it was bullshit.

Puberty blooms in bramble patches,  
not in the swell of rosebuds or  
cherry trees dripping with  
the promise of reincarnation,  
pink as intestines and white as bone.

_Stop looking at me with those eyes! I told you it was personal; I told you it was mine! My body and every mark on it—they’re all for me, and I won’t give them away unless I’m giving myself away on the altar!_

It’s not for the sake of dying—they aren’t that deep. I take my supplements properly; make up for the iron in my diet. I’m pallid and dizzy and my eyes are a little unfocused, sure! My bad arm is useless after a session, barely able to lift a glass of cranberry juice. Weakness spreads to my fingertips and I feel for all the world like an invertebrate, like a bag of blood that eats and sleeps and thirsts and _glows_ when the pressure valve is released, and the

__**smell and taste  
** **piquant, alive**  
**a vegetarian carnivore**  
**smearing nectar over rot**

There aren’t enough words in any language to do it justice. Only people brave enough to bear the risks can know how grounding it is; how _real_ it is; how gleeful and perfectly stupid this bizarre intoxication can be.

Not all bodies are built to endure it. Rather than view ourselves through the shattered lens of society, let’s acknowledge the special privilege of being able to live and die at the same time!

We flourish in anguish here, gulping down the oil that powers our bodies with pupils wide and black as unicode symbol U+2764.

Defective, eclectic, eccentric tastes—  
immorality pained in its painted frame.  
A newspaper girl deals in secrets;  
carcinogens seep from lying cherub lips.

I've been called a lot worse than sick.


	2. Don't look at me when I'm like this!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out it's way easier to project onto this girl than I thought it'd be. So here's a second chapter? It feels cheap to call these "chapters," so I guess it's a drabble collection now.
> 
> Title comes from the [MARETU](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmj0YkPwo47bPoBt9ma-bxg) [song](http://vocaloidlyrics.wikia.com/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA_\(Scrumize\)), ["Scrumize."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caGr4pP6H50) The term "horror love stories" is a direct reference to the lovely, beautifully-written [Movie Night or: The Fine Line Between Lust and Fear ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966040/chapters/27059040) by [smutdouble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smutdouble/pseuds/smutdouble). ♡♡♡ It's an amazing fic. :)

“Why do you still cut yourself?” my Mom asks, words slicing through silence.

I flinch, and my whole body rears up, taken aback.

“I—“

I stammer pathetically before shock turns to mortification, which then turns to rage— turns my face a startling shade of scarlet.

“I _don’t_ do that anymore, and even if I _did_ , it wouldn’t be any of your business. So don’t ask. Please.” It comes out as a curt plea, even as I square my shoulders. _Please don’t make me say it out loud. You aren’t stupid. **You know.**_

“I saw them. I just want to understand. Are you never going to see a doctor again?”

“ _Understand?!_ ” I’m breathless with disbelief and a deep shame. “It’s not _for_ you to understand! It’s private— I don’t— I don’t— ask you shit about what you and Dad do when you’re alone, so—“

“What does that have to do with hurting yourself?” She interrupts in evident distaste, a sharpness to her delivery that’s prying for a confession— for defamation.

“ **Mom!** ” I shout, covering my eyes miserably, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

_That has everything to do with it...!_

And I can’t speak. If she comes to “understand” (which logically, she already should— I’m hardly subtle, and my personality fits the bill. Rotten and subservient, pretentious, fetid to the core. “Addicted to pain” is hardly my worst aspect.) she may disapprove of me even more. I can’t tell her about my unusual preferences. _No_! Maybe it’s the humiliation and panic cramping up my gut, but I’m rooted to the floor. Suddenly, once again, I’m a surly queer kid lost in a conservative Sex Ed class. City morals stuck in the suburbs. And all eyes turn to me.

I run away. I lock the door. I briefly consider indulging that very habit I loathe to mention before instead reaching for my pen. To write. At least, for now.

⁂

Black Sheep

Don't infantilize the greatest high  
or avert your eyes; please recognize  
this beloved sensation, romanized,  
(nec)romancing all of humankind!

Common sense is always second-guessed.  
How are the affected expected to accept  
the social mores of omnivores in  
formalwear and black loafers?

Have you filed down your claws and teeth?  
Is it polite to pretend we don't have gruesome needs?  
Between sensationalism and horror-love stories,  
sterile and self-righteous in your treachery!

_Don’t you dare say you know what’s best for me…!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ("Romanized" comes from the idea that similar practices have existed across the globe long before any term using roman lettering was coined.)


	3. With the holograms beside me, I'll dance alone tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was procrastinating on editing this, but [Kizuna Ai](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YaOt1yT-ZeyB0OmxHgolA)'s [playthrough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YE-1UvhKKc&list=PLWkRfirH7n-s74tfWcyvZJM6JLkQDhC3H) and everyone's nice comments spurred me on!
> 
> Title comes from [Saturnz Barz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qJp6xlKEug) by [Gorillaz](http://www.gorillaz.com/).

The second-biggest thrill of the affair is deciding whether or not to do it. The longer you put it off, the less docile you become. The more desperate you become. Irritation bubbles up in your chest, the circulation of your veins a _tangible_ pulse rushing through the fleshy lump of your body.

 _Thump. Thump. Swirl._ Dizzying breaths, fingers twitching and trembling as if about to lose control.

What would best set the air? Strawberry incense, as if to mock the smotheringly sweet stench of spring permeating the air? A salacious vampire manga (recommended by Natsuki, of course) delving into the depths of despair of the damned, and their forbidden fruit baskets full of apples and snake-oil? A glass of wine? A hit of weed, graciously hustled to have obtained?

For aftercare, you prepare a chocolate bar, a recovery drink, and strawberries in an ornate little bowl. You gingerly stack them inside a gift bag, and staring back at you are the bright, adoring eyes of a cartoon hamster wishing you a happy (re)birthday.

You say goodnight to your mother and tell her you love her, in case of some freak accident that ends up with a slashed artery and a death you’ve been craving for so long— a peaceful rest— a dead daughter for her to find in the morning, pants around her ankles and eyes glazed over with tranquility and fear-turned-euphoria: la petite mort. _It’ll never happen_ , you tell yourself. Almost a decade and only two "major" accidents, neither of which were anywhere close to life-threatening. You’ll be fine. But to use a metaphor Natsuki might be fond of…

[Just two or three mouthfuls]  
isn’t cheap; it’s a spell  
that costs health points to cast.

The ouroboros of addiction  
chokes down its own lifeforce,  
recycling and regurgitating  
what keeps it alive:

dew from the vine  
and rot from the gutter,  
mixed with mud  
and muddled together.

A quiet huff of laughter  
and an unbidden snarl  
both go unheard  
in shadow of the stars.

The best and biggest thrill of them all is the first cut. Will you be overzealous, and create a small fissure leaking honey? Or will you test the waters, applying more and more force with each minute swipe...?

When it bubbles to the surface, what will the animal inside you do? Watch the little pebbles, droplets of love dribble down a snowy forearm in awe? Will you go into a frenzy? Will you suck, lick, slurp, _**bite**_ at the slits in your skin, the openings in your body like a starving cannibal?

You’re a monster in the skin of a schoolgirl, and you want out— you want all of it out, empty and floating on a frighteningly precise mutilation.

Your purpose is frighteningly simple: fun.

d̨̢҉i̷̵̶s̴̨͘t̡̢͢͜o̡rt̷̸̕҉̢r̡̨͢i̢̨̢o̸̸͜n̵͢

You smile, a deranged yet deeply humbled thing. You feel like a fallen angel, languidly basking in your sudden decline into the worst kind of hedonism.

Consciousness clips in and out like a poorly-pirated movie. Juices stick to your inner thighs, though you’d barely even touched yourself. It was the agony, the hallowed and hollowed inside of this _thing_ you pilot, this vessel you’ve made both livestock and master. It doesn’t matter. Because as composed as you try to act in public, right now, your _everything_ is discomposed and _decomposing,_  askew and far-away. You’re iridescent, transcendent, godly! You can do anything!

...Except walk, apparently. When you struggle to your feet, a wave of white noise overtakes every nerve in your body, and you find yourself clinging to the nightstand so as not to fall.

Sleep it off. It’s a small sacrifice for salvation. For the best feeling you could ever hope to obtain.

_For completion._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know— weed is like super illegal in Japan, and I have no idea if it's realistic for a schoolgirl to have access to that. Yes, I am projecting. Thanks for going along with it. *finger guns* :)


	4. A medical clinic in a momentary forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody loves a trip to the warped backstory dimension.
> 
> TItle comes from [the song](http://vocaloidlyrics.wikia.com/wiki/%E5%88%B9%E9%82%A3%E3%83%97%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B9_\(Setsuna_Plus\)) [Setsuna Plus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-o3MbJmYJc) by [Mikito-P](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBR4N5DkgDt3PLTcfJB1iiw). I highly recommend [the Kazehiki cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UsCfm676ws). :)

I learned the hard way that there is no “help” for people like me.

In middle school, teachers nurturing a complex extend their hands in what I perceive to be empathy. They agitate something that’s too early, too simple and brutal to be understood.

I trust them implicitly when they stand up for me, the rare few who supposedly would not tolerate bigotry. When I follow the rules, they smile. I feel more complete, something inside my heart molten-warm on a slow burn. Surely I can trust them.

It's not as if I volunteer the information. They ask. And ask, and ask, and _ask_ less-than-kindly. They pull me out of class.

Down to the nurse’s office, my day-old, still-sensitive and inflamed treasures. An old woman in disbelief, her trigger-fingers on the buttons of a landline landmine. She phones home.

My parents learn what kind of person their daughter really is. If the nurse is flustered, then I am nauseous with shame, unfurling in my innards like poison gas.

The _medical professional_ — and I say that with a heavy dose of sarcasm— tries to save this sorry situation.

“She’s too young for that, though! She doesn't know what she's saying. She's probably just confused—”

“No.”

It’s a tedious charade, one that leaves me ready to give it up, m̶y̶ ̶a̶u̶t̶o̶n̶o̶m̶y̶. I forfeit my status and rescind my good name. After all, I've never been very a good liar.

“I wish that were true. This lifestyle is exhausting. Every day, I deal with people like you… people talking behind my back. Some of the first-years haven’t even hit puberty yet! But I have this curse! And now…”

Acid rain begins to prick at my eyes,  
Piercing through with a hiccup and gross sob.  
My voice comes out, a hoarse, broken thing,

“My family won’t even treat me normally anymore...”

⁂

Exposition to Crux 

A difficult day. A migraine,  
anemia-induced whirling headache.  
Lately, I realize that my body can't keep up.

On the one hand, yes,  
I'm circumventing a stress test.  
Orgasms are supposed to be spiritual, so.

The three weepy children:  
Victim, Perpetrator, and Martyr.  
How do we define purity,  
and how do we sustain it?  
Could tainted adults still hope to obtain it?

When the magic evaporates,  
will all sacrilege sacrifices  
crush this scarred and tattered form?  
  
_Ask a doctor and you’re better off dead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Wikipedia, a Japanese first-year middle school student would be 12–13. In this section, Yuri is a second-year, 13–14. I want to keep everything as realistic as possible (and project as respectfully as I'm able to, lol).


	5. Blooming flowers fall and scattered flowers rot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this one. I'm posting it now because I have officially given up during the process of editing.
> 
> Title from [Flamingo](https://youtu.be/27hHomk1Wek) by [syudou](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCraC7460yGQF4GDmSjCecpQ/videos). I reccomend checking out the [Gekiyaku cover ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plrMZyKs8Fg) too. ( ｡•⌄•｡ )✧♪*

In the wrong place before the right time.  
If I have anything else to blame, it’s that.

⁂

People like me live short lives. Well, if you’re as dedicated to self-medicating as me. I learned not to trust others, but it’s not as if Google can tell me how long I have left to live.  
  
Years pass in utter stagnation. One after another, the important people in my life leave my side— with a stunning ratio of one to "success," and the rest to death or ruin.  
  
I’m constantly understimulated, as if recovering from a stroke. I take scalding showers and near-boiling baths, to the point where my skin breaks out in an odd sort of scaly rash. In the summer, I test how long I can hold my breath under ice-cold water. I need stimulation. I need to feel my lungs struggling to take in air. I need my heart to hammer like the frantic smashing of keyboard and drums, voice synthesizers wailing airily and dreamily. Amongst my neurotransmitters, jubilation.

It’s been nine years since I started.

Frankly, I’m running out of red blood cells. I’m running out of ways to feel _true_ pleasure without making that count stoop to a dangerous depth.

I can’t get physicals for obvious reasons— let an old man see my half-naked, grizzled body? Subject myself to interrogation over tiger stripes I’ve earned, woven into my flesh as instinct demands? I’ll take death, thank you very much. The idea of getting bloodwork done is downright laughable. No doctor would agree to take enough to test me after seeing my arms.

Best case scenario, I get taken to an asylum. Worst case scenario, I receive false positives for various types of blood-related cancers, and then I get taken to an asylum.

All I want to know is whether or not I’m dying.

Or, more accurately I suppose, how quickly I'm dying.

If I can cut back to twice a month, cherry-pick my diet for iron like an emaciated vampire, and… let myself be seen in public trying exercise of all things… I was elegant in grade school, but I've grown clumsier in synchronization with the unsatiable. Back then, I had the most mature appearance out of my friend group, but I seem to be both frozen in time and regressing. My initial growth spurt was my last. I’ve heard from Monika that Natsuki is taller than me now, but that was awhile ago.

It's been awhile since I've heard from anyone.

⁂

Human waste secreting slime.  
Sound and sight shine, killing time.  
Silly songs and hearts with eyes,  
profusely leaking, piece of mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aged-up BadEnd!Yuri, lol


	6. Safety tips: memoirs on how to prolong a life sentence

Rising hysteria.  
Overexcited, odd  
overreaction.  
Beauty in simplicity.  
Brutal in sincerity.

Expired girlishness.  
Expanding foolishness.  
Exuberant selfishness.  
Subverted faintheartedness.  
Terminal nearsightedness.  
Hedonistic holiness.

The sensation of being horrified with oneself.

Shame < Bless


	7. ������

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [my two remaining brain cells make this sound when you rub them together](https://youtu.be/lvrrpNHuUsU)

Guilt, shame, fear, the fabled  
receiving end of judgement.  
Never quite attaining persecution that  
justifies  
indulgence and interest,  
which bordered on intent.

A positively alarming breach of ethics and a would-have-been felony. At hand, the meticulous structuring of a careless tragedy.

The night is audience to my wretched song, released into the air by the morse code of keyboarding. I pray to a god I don’t believe in for forgiveness I don’t deserve, and make puppy dog eyes at impending consequences.

You ought to be ashamed of me. 

⁂

I can feel something in my chest cavity creaking, bending with a wheeze and a crack. An empty engine, centered, stutters and flutters with the rise and fall of my chest, yes, to the rhythm of arrhythmia arithmetic.

My breaths come out in shallow puffs. My limbs are at once too heavy and too light to move, a toaster in a bathtub, sizzling meat steaming. There is a long, long moment that passes over the course of perhaps an hour, wherein my pupils twitch at nothing and the seismic contractions of my trembling heart put my priorities into perspective. The world appears to me as a hazy combination of glossy and matte, impossible textures and objects without edges.

This is not a panic attack.

This has never happened before, not once in all my years.

Am I going to die on this couch?

⁂

There’s an ambient buzz swimming on the walls  
in the shape of something shallow and warm.  
I close my eyes, mesmerizing, fantasizing,  
blinding. Bound and biding time, idling.


	8. Human sexuality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some vague, problematic Natsuri? You gotta squint a little.

The unfortunate domestication of humans  
and the land they in turn domesticate.  
Colonizing, imperial rule reigns down vulgar vinegar.  
In the shade of some thicket, an iridescent cricket  
screeching a mating chirp, it’s thick-  
haired feelers rubbing together—  
a bloated toad and it’s prehensile tongue, a bot  
fly. All equally horrendous. One could gag.  
Or choke. Or that other thing.

There is nothing romantic about this love song,  
no awaiting recipient; a spinstress “schoolgirl.”

Permanently pubescent,  
the adults’ trial lies  
in determining your own code;  
cracking mine shut, fruitless hacking  
up blood. Decisions won’t come in  
the fuzzy, sedated, sugar-coated night.

How many more metaphors can I make?

Counting condemned ornaments,  
counting rhythms and days.  
So **few** things to say in so **many** damn ways!  
Which of these stanzas made you stay,  
and which were the ones that drove you away?

⁂

 _“Secure! Release!” An injured carnation_  
_and the incantation from her TV stick with me._  
_The heroine of justice: 『True love never flees!』_  
_If the feeling was mutual, I’d have seen it in dreams._  
_If rule, sanction, and sentence were upheld,_  
_I’d return to the cage where my nightmares still linger._

⁂

 _Let’s see a challenge. Let’s see a change._  
_Let’s go the graveyard. Let's play a game._  
_The ante rule has been banned for some time,_  
_but I_  
_have something far greater than win_  
_or loss_  
_to offer, improper._  
_A pathetic and ridiculous proffer._

Won’t you take everything out on me?

⁂

 _I pleaded for perversion, not blessed with subtlety,_  
_And the hellfire, the contempt in her gaze_  
_was far worse than what I’d hoped for:_  
_not savory cutlets, but a gaping graze._

Oxymoron, oxy, gen, moron.  
Even with glucose, my cells still choke.

天罰, divine punishment, is not nearly as pretty  
or pleasurable as centerfold scriptures depict.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natsuki gets Yuri into anime & manga by showing her CLAMP series. They're watching Card Captor Sakura on their "date." Ironically, her invincible spell is "Everything will surely be all right." (「絶対大丈夫だよ。」/ "Zettai daijoubu da yo.").


	9. My excruciatingly disconsolate heart squirmed even more than my rotting body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't title any of my own work. Sorry, mom.
> 
> Title comes from the ["The mysterious story of an imbécile's fall"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bar8w97-N24) by [TaKU.K](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5EG7VTgfM1IEelDj1h-nYQ).

Physically, mentally refusing to reflect the years  
spent stewing in the shallow grave of sapience.  
Froth and bubble over, foaming, foul,  
frazzled frontal lobe, splintered CNS!

A tearing sound so slight and minute;  
so surprisingly supple, my own flesh!  
Are you not well-acquainted with the night  
and it's chorus of gasps, the upside-down agony?

I’ll lick my face like a cat, smothering myself  
with the scent of a secret more lofty than anyone else’s.

I’ll claw my way to the position of “Victim,” obliterating the unseen internal "Perpetrator."  
Next on the chopping block lies “Martyr,” who couldn’t be more chuffed.

⁂

Pity old, perceived power, or moderate means  
pinned by prejudices we’ve outdone in spades;  
our aces, jacks, kings, queens,  
and quantifiers without objects shall decay.

Putting on airs, laying in wait,  
hiding behind forces from which we came.

Looking down, having seen many revolutions  
of the Earth, adults turn our planet into a sun of its own.  
The dirt was never meant to shine so bright,  
or soak up such stellar and staggering heat.

_Their generation rigged the numbers game._

Knowing too much, I extract the sense from my brain;  
knowing the sin of waste, I leave none for the drain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally just now realized that I plagiarized my favorite poet by accident... hard smh.
> 
> Shoutout to Robert Frost and his iconic poem, "Acquainted with the Night." orz


End file.
